Ambani SEZs among 69 plans cleared

Even as notification of small special economic zones of less than 25 hectares has been put on hold and referred to a Group of Ministers, 69 large zones including Reliance Infrastructure's 10,000-acre plan at Jamnagar, Reliance Industries Ltd's 10,000-hectare plan at Gurgaon and the 25,000-acre Mundra zone have been issued letters of approval.

Of these, 36 cases have been given in-principle approval while the remaining 33 have been given formal approval by the Board of Approval. Of the 33 cases, 16 are old ones which were referred to the board again for ratification.

These include ML Dalmiya and Co Ltd's proposal for an IT zone in Kolkata, Wipro's IT zone in Chennai, Gujarat Hira Bourse's for gems and jewellery at Ichhapor in Surat and Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation's multi-product zone at Dahej, Gujarat.

Final notifications for the 33 cases will be issued over the next few weeks while the in-principle cases will be notified after each of the companies submits evidence to the board that it is in possession of the land.

Officials said the next board meeting is expected to be convened in May as the commerce ministry has already received a large number of proposals for more zones. "The board will consider the large proposals which are not affected by the review exercise," an official said.

The cases for which letters of approval have been issued include five proposals pertaining to the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. These include an in-principle approval for two "" Smart City Infrastructure Pvt Ltd's proposal for an information technology zone in Ernakulam, Kerala, spread over 404 hectares and Velankanni Information System Pvt Ltd's for an IT zone at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, spread over 100 hectares.

In addition to these, formal approvals have been issued for Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd's proposal for an IT zone in Chennai spread over 159.04 hectares, ETL Infrastructure Services Ltd's for a textile zone at Erode district in Tamil Nadu spread over 101.62 hectares and a second zone of the same company in Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu, spread over 105 hectares.